FAQ: New Sales Order From Clients - InBizness 2.8

QUESTION: Quick question regarding entering a new sales order record, the Client Id or Company field in the Bill Address Info tab don't appear to be drop down boxes and I'm not sure how to search for existing Clients. I reviewed the movies but I was unable to see the steps for creating a new sales order record and searching for the Client Id. Can you give me a quick review?

ANSWER: You can go about it a number of ways. The way I do it is to find the client in thejavascript:void(0) clients module and then click the sales order button in the “Create New” bank of buttons.

A READER ASKS: Email Correspondence Integration Products

From Dwayne Wright PMP
Certified FileMaker 10, 9 & 8 Developer
WEB: www.dwaynewright.com
EMAIL: info@dwaynewright.com
TWITTER: dwaynewright
YOUTUBE: FileMakerThoughts

A READER ASKS (and owner of a number of our InBizness products)
Email as part of Correspondence module. What would you suggest as an email sender-- a plug-in or what? Do you like the program from Proof group that lets you send mass HTML emails, or is this overkill given that fundamental correspondence tracking for letters, etc is already built in to InBiz CRM. I definitely want to do email marketing.

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DWAYNE RESPONDS
I don’t feel there is a single correct answer for this one. The SeedCode / fmSpark FileMaker Mail Merge product isn’t something I’ve used yet. I have looked at the six minutes of instructional videos on their web site but haven’t downloaded the demo. Their FileMaker Mail Merge products seems way too heavy for most of my customers needs. Thing is, if you have heavy email / mail merge needs, this certainly looks like the best product on the planet to address those needs.

A link to their product below ...
http://www.seedcode.com/cp-app/ste_cat/fmSpark

That is the rub isn’t it? What are the requirements of the database in regards to correspondence? Another thing to consider is what is your audience willing to do? If you look at the two minute introduction video of fmSpark, you will see well over two dozen mouse clicks. That is pretty heavy but again each of those clicks is leading up to an impressive end result. Will your customers / users take on that much overhead for correspondence? Are they already doing that much overhead manually today?

If you are considering using the fmSpark product with InBizness for your customers needs, I’d recommend this simple thing. When you are sitting with the customers, pull up the two overview videos and look at them together. If the customer is pretty jazzed about what they see, you have your answer. If they are not jazzed about it, I wouldn’t suggest trying to sell them on fmSpark.

I wouldn’t point them to the web site but go over the video together. This helps facilitate the discovery process of needs analysis and ultimately the product acceptance criteria. I would try to go over this with the sponsor and some of the end users. It is a wonderful product but don't let its impressive feature set dissuade you from good old needs analysis interviews!

In regards to email plug-ins, incremental enhancements to FileMaker have really reduced the need for email plug-ins for sending email. They haven’t done a thing for receiving emails into a database and that might be something to consider. If you have a need for receiving emails, then you might consider a plug-in for both tasks. If you are considering a plug-in implementation, download the demos first. Some of the plug-ins you see recommended by developers out there, I would NOT recommend for the casual FileMaker developer. Although these products are powerful, their documentation is sparse, confusing and time intensive to consume.

Personally, I’ve had good luck with mailit from Dacons LLP.
http://www.dacons.net/fmplugins/mailit4/
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More info about the author and FileMaker in general, contact me at info@dwaynewright.com.

© 2010 - Dwayne Wright - dwaynewright.com

The material on this document is offered AS IS. There is NO REPRESENTATION OR WARRANTY, expressed or implied, nor does any other contributor to this document. WARRANTIES OF MERCHANT ABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE EXPRESSLY DISCLAIMED. Consequential and incidental damages are expressly excluded. FileMaker Pro is the registered trademark of FileMaker Inc.

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A Bunch Of Customization Inquiry About InBizness Property Manager

I left you a voicemail and thought that I would also send you a email of what I am looking for in a program.

Your "Open Business Empowerment Tools" demo designed in FileMaker Pro looks great and it may possibly be what I'm looking for.

Here is what I'm hoping this product has the ability to do:

Database
Tenant Info
Owner Info
Building Info
Vendor Info
Work Orders
Invoices
Estimate/Bids
Staff Info

Accounting System
Payables
Receivables
Registers
Budgets

Reports
Owner's Property Cash Flow (Monthly/Quarterly/Yearly)
Owner's Property Profit & Loss (Monthly/Quarterly/Yearly)
Owner's Property Income & Expense Statement (Monthly/Quarterly/Yearly)
Owner's Property Tenant Registry (Monthly/Quarterly/Yearly)

Overall Combined Cash Flow (Monthly/Quarterly/Yearly)
Overall Combined Profit & Loss (Monthly/Quarterly/Yearly)
Overall Combined Income & Expense Statement (Monthly/Quarterly/Yearly)
Overall Combined Tenants (Monthly/Quarterly/Yearly)
Overall Combined Owners (Monthly/Quarterly/Yearly)

Tracking
Owners
Tenants (Payments, Work Orders, Notices, Activities, etc.)
Vendors (Invoices, Estimates, Payables/Receivables, etc.)
Staff (Emails, Timecards, HR, Background checks, etc.)
Budget
Contacts (Cold calls, prospects, etc.)
Transactions

Organization
All of the above - Real Estate, Property Management, Accounting
User Friendly
Administrator privileges
Capabilities to add additional features designed for our business
Calendar capabilities
Management forms
Scan documents & payments into individual records

Sharing
Going Green - no more printing and mailing reports.....
I would like individual property owners to "view only" their property online maybe thorough a link on my website or I could set up a server for this purpose.
Each owner and each property/building would need to have security password access to "view only" their property/building.

Does your product include the - also the cost for you product:
Basic CRM
SOHO
Classic
Property MGR
Real Estate
Money

It sounds like a lot but from looking at your demo most of this is covered in your demo program. I am currently working out & bouncing between a few different softwares to achieve most of the above. It would be much easier if I had a program to handle it all in one, but because of the cost involved in most of the software that I have looked into I needed to go this route.

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DWAYNE RESPONDS
Sorry about missing your call, I am a bit hard to find these days. I'm glad you took the time to write your question down though because it gave me a better opportunity to go over it in detail. Out of the box, InBizness Property Manger does not have all the features you mentioned. Since it is sold as an open FileMaker framework application, the missing pieces can be added. Better yet, they can be added in such a way as to best met your individual business needs. Here is a listing of what is NOT currently in the current version of InBizness Property Manager ...

Database
Invoices & Estimates / Bids

Note: Variations of these can be found in the other InBizness products. Depending on your needs, it wouldn't take that much to add this functionality.

Accounting System
None of these features are currently available in this version of InBizness Property Manager. We could add these features in or build a conduit to QuickBooks that would allow you to leverage these features there.

Reports
None of these reports are currently available in InBizness Property Manager. They all could be added as customizations. If you were considering connecting to QuickBooks, it would make sense to leverage the reports they have there. We can add the reports that are not in QuickBooks in FileMaker.

Tracking
I'm not sure what you are defining here but I suppose it is a set of saved searches per modules. These can be easily added and this is something users can do as well via FileMaker 10 Saved Finds.

Organization & Sharing
Many of these features are available, can be customized in or purchased to work with other FileMaker framework products. For example using 123Sync from SolutionMakers for QuickBooks integration or the calendaring applications from SeedCode. That is the wonderful thing about using FileMaker to power your business, the options are practically endless in regards of getting the business tool you need.

Want An Estimate For Customization?
What I would suggest is to narrow the list down or organize it by your priorities. Remember, we can customize the database in a series of elaborations over time. For example, adding the missing database elements and the reports would run about $500. We can then setup a timetable for the other elaborations. You can hire local developers to do some work for you as well. Again, this product is an open environment development tool for your business.

FAQ: About InBizness

QUESTION FROM A READER:

I've been looking at InBizness and have a few questions about it:

1- Is inbizness a locked solution in any way, is there a limit to customization?

2- Would your solution work with IWP/CWP? If so, how well does the experience translate?

3- Do you have to physically ship inbizness?, (we are located in Barcelona...) :-)

ANSWER:

Thanks for your interest in InBizness. InBizness is not locked in any way. All elements are open for your individual customizations. None of the InBizness packages are designed for the web. So you would need to review what your web needs are, what the FileMaker limitations on the web are and then customize InBizness accordingly. In some cases, this is minor and in some case time consuming. None of these changes are that challenging technically, it is just layout and script tweaks to make the experience web compatible. InBizness is small enough to ship as an email enclosure, so delivery is almost instant!

InBizness Property Manager 3.0

InBizness 3.0 has a number of enhancements including a new fees module integrated with the payment system and a significantly upgraded tenants module. This is a third update in the last six months and this just illustrates the power and flexibility of the FileMaker database environment.

TENANT MODULE UPDATES
The tenant module has received a number of user interface and operational changes with this update. The tab bar has been updated to be more effective and streamlined. The Deposit / Move Out tab has been renamed Rental Details. Two new tabs were added as well Tenant Details and Fees.

So the tab bar for tenants now reads General, Income, Rental Details, Tenant Details, Activities, Payments, Fees, Files and Background. The addition of tenant details allowed us to move some of the tenant data from the top area to this dedicated tab. So the top area now contains just the name and phone number of the primary and secondary tenants.

The tenant details tab now has a wider array of fields supporting information of both primary and secondary tenants. This includes phone numbers, email address, SSN / EIN id numbers, drivers license, date of birth and age.

The renamed Rental Details tab contains a new collection of fields to support tracking insurance information including the company, phone number, policy number, voucher start and end dates.

The new Fees tab allows the assessment of fees (most likely late fees) to a tenant record. These assigned fees can then be easily added to payment records that go along with or independent of rental payments.

THE NEW FEES SYSTEM
The fee system is tied directly to the tenants, unit and payments modules. The user interface to access fees is available only from the tenants module.

You can add a new fee to the system by clicking its associated button.

Fees are paid via the payment system. You will see this change in the payment dialog box where unpaid fees are shown and can be added to that payment.

DEVELOPER RELATED CHANGES
Since the system is getting more robust with additional data relationships integrated within the system, the relationship graph has been updates to be easier to read and access.

InBizness Property Manager 2.0

The following is a list of updates that were added to InBizness Property Manager 2.0.

TENANT RELATED CHANGES
Added new table called TenantIncome to facilitate better tracking of multiple levels of tenant income.

Added new tab in the Tenants module called Income.

Added a new field called Annual Household Income which displays the entered monthly income by twelve.

Removed the phone 2 fields and added fields for a second tenant name and phone info
Deleted employee related fields and added that functionality back into the Tenant Income table.

Added new fields of Household Size, Household Income, Date Last Certified For Income Eligibility.

Added new list view layout that focuses upon the household income data
Tweaked the list button so it gives you a choice of the general list or the household income list.

Tweaked the button in the rentals portal to bring up a choice dialog box so you can go to the rental details or directly to the unit information.

Added field to track insurance voucher information in the Tenant form view in the Deposits / Insurance / Move Out tab.


TENANT / UNIT LINK CHANGES
Made changes to the dialog box that is used to link a tenant to an available unit. Primarily, it has more logic to automatically set the status of the unit when it is rented for the first time.

DEVELOPER RELATED CHANGES
Added a developer related script that preps the database for a new installation by deleting all records in all tables

InBizness Basic CRM

What makes InBizness Basic CRM different than the other FileMaker CRM products on the market currently? For starters, it is designed specifically for the small to average size organization in terms of price, features, flexibility and ruthlessly simple open architecture. How about we briefly discuss each of these points.

ABOUT THE PRICE
InBizness Basic is sold to you for $299.00 US. There isn't a different price if you have one user, ten users or fifty users. There isn't a different price if you want to run it on a machine to machine network (called pier to pier), on an office server (using FileMaker Server) or on an worldwide LAN. InBizness Basic CRM is a FileMaker 10 based product, so you will need to purchase the correct FileMaker licenses to support your users but InBizness Basic CRM is only $299.00. (period)

ABOUT THE FEATURES
We put in the most basic features of supporting companies (clients / leads / vendors), invoices, purchase orders, inventory, correspondence, department staff and activity management. There isn't any overly complicated calendar tool, just the ability to create linked activities from almost every module. The idea is to forego complicated click intensive calendar views, just simple point and click operations so that things get done.

ABOUT THE FLEXIBILITY
We never intended to put dozens of modules into this product but we wanted to support those of you that do. We didn't add every possible feature to every module but we wanted to support those of you that do. This means you can add just what you need to support your workplace and have a streamlined elegant system.

We do have a unique feature that allows users to group common activities and add those group activities to a module with a click of the button. This coding can be easily lifted and added to other modules you might want to add to your database.

ABOUT THE RUTHLESSLY SIMPLE OPEN ARCHITECTURE
We have not added any technology other than pure basic FileMaker design. If you have read and understand the $99 FileMaker Training Series manual, you should have no problem modifying all aspects of InBizness Basic CRM.

HOW ABOUT INCLUDED SUPPORT?
Yes, we include 2 hours of support or even customization with each copy of InBizness Basic CRM. Any additional design support is only $85 a hour (or less with a prepaid support bundle purchase).

Want to know more, check out the included video tutorials and feel free to contact us with any questions.